History of Reeve's Emporium
The Emporium began its life in 1897, built by Thomas Henry Reeve.
Location: 135 - 141 Queen Street, Campbelltown NSW 2560
Built in 1897, Reeve's Emporium was founded and erected by Thomas Henry Reeve and a local relative named Will Craft helped build it. The Reeve family resided above the shop.
Around 1909 Reeve's son Harold and his wife Millie took over the business.
The emporium was built with rendered brick, of two storeys, and with a corrugated iron roof. It also had a balcony up until 1951 when a motorcycle crashed into it and it had to be demolished.
The store sold drapery, ladies' and gentlemen's wear, boots and shoes, axes and pruning knives, buggy whips, double breech loading guns and gunpowder, and toys. Millinery, drapery and haberdashery were also popular items sold. An addition on the northern side in 1925 became the toy department.
The building was sold out of the Reeve family in the early 1950s but continued to operate with a variety of shops and businesses.
Part of the shop was rented by the Bank of New South Wales from 1957 until 1964 until the Bank had purchased and built new premises next door, on the site of the former Fire Station. Later, the Commercial Bank of Australia was there in the 1970s.
Thomas Henry Reeve served as an alderman for Campbelltown Council. He was a pioneer of Christianity in Campbelltown, the Uniting Church's Reeve Memorial Hall on Moore Oxley Bypass is named after him. Reeve was also a real estate agent in town by 1911. He died in 1938.
Image gallery of Reeve's Emporium